


Gentle Inquisitions

by MorbidOptimist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, Interrogation, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation, Torture, Trollstuck, caliginous-pale vacillation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 05:04:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17912525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorbidOptimist/pseuds/MorbidOptimist
Summary: Terezi is used to using scare tactics and torture within her profession, but for this procedure, she outsources her problem to learn a new way of getting the results she's after.





	1. Chapter 1

When Rohhse offered to give her assistance, Terezi hadn’t quite considered just what the purple blood’s offer would entail. 

Here she was, in a conveniently empty warehouse in a dockyard, observing a form of interrogation that was leaving her insides at least seven sorts of squirmy and yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to look away; it would be counterproductive to the demonstration in the first place, she reasoned, and she doubted Rohhse would let her hear the end of it should she turntail like a frightened barkbeast-pup.  

Rohhse was demonstrating on her lifelong kismeses, which was equal parts strange and reassuring. 

Their hate was something unbreakable, something fated even; and although many in their friendfeind group claimed to disbelieve such superstition, they often fell silent upon recalling the knowledge of how the girls had shared a hive and their lusus since their first pupation and had lasted through the sweeps in an overall stable state of pitch and candor. 

For them to have this background of quadrantal stability, to display the amount of trust needed to partake in their current activity, was the reassuring part.  

The strange part, was the manner of activity being carried out. 

It was well known that Rohhse was something of a psycholospictice, who plied minds and emotions into the open like they were toy puzzle cubes for her to inspect at her leisure; there was no surprise that someone such as herself would be into things so…

Well, the word  _ kinky _ was all she could really use to describe the situation, other perhaps, than ones such as illegal, morally dubious, and perverted.

Force-shooshing someone in the heat of necessity was one thing, but this style of interrogation was a far cry from snipping eyelids or giving a criminal a respectable warnstabbing or two;  Terezi wondered if such subverting techniques plied out enough confessions to justify the gross introllmanity of it all. 

Yet, Rohhxy must have agreed to the demonstration, and done so willingly; she’d never been one to go against her own nature. 

Perhaps it was due to an equal lack of moirails that allowed them their indulgences? 

Terezi could have sworn that Rohhxy’s pale quadrant had been quietly filled by an olive blooded boy in short shorts some sweeps ago, but she wasn’t certain; Rohhse she knew, had never held a morail and likely never would. 

Perhaps she was looking at it wrong, she thought.

Maybe they had simply been kismesises for so long, that they could indulge in such fetishes without fear of vacillating? 

...Had Rohhxy secretly been the one to start her kismeses on the fast track to quadrant blurring activities? Rohhse was always following hornfirst after Rohhxy’s interests, passive-aggressively responding to the elder Lalond’s passive aggressive attempts to immerse her in them. 

She paused; she was rambling, albeit mentally. 

It was rather hard not to, given the circumstances. 

Terezi drew in a quiet, hissing breath, and focused on the pair in front of her. 

Rohhse had just finished tying her partner up; she whispered something to her that was too quiet to overhear, and then she turned around, smiling, and walked over.

Although nothing in the room changed, it felt to Terezi, as though everything had grown a great deal colder. 

“Everything is all set, if you’re ready,” Rohhse offered, amusedly. 

Terezi straightened and nodded to her, unable to find her voice through her embarrassment.

“Excellent; by the time I’m through, I promise you’ll have learned everything you’ve needed to know to make the spiderbitch melt beneath your fingers.” 


	2. Chapter 2

Darkness was all Vriska could see when she opened her eye. 

She groaned, and immediately, an overpowering flash of light blinded her. 

“Shit Pyrope, what the hell.”

Terezi didn’t answer; instead she allowed the time for Vriska’s eyesight to adjust.

The cerulean blood looked around, eyeing the warehouse with mild amusement and hesitation. 

Vriska chuckled, and Terezi took that as her cue to walk towards her. 

“Hello Mindfang.”

“Heeeeeeeey Redglare.”

Vriska was grinning broadly, and Terezi felt her bloodpusher constrict. 

“You aren’t going to enjoy this Vriska, but it’s for your own good.”

Vriska only grinned harder; “I can take whatever you can dish out pupa.” 

Terezi licked her lips and bent forward, inches in front Vriska’s face.

“Are you sure about that?” she whispered, “I’m not going to go easy on you. You might wake up tomorrow and hate me platonically. You might not ever want to speak to me again.”

Vriska scoffed, and Terezi was certain she would have tossed her head and flipped her hair had she possessed the ability to do so.

“You don’t scare me Pyrope, you never have.”

Terezi pulled back and nodded; Rohhse had instructed that the initial consent was one of the most crucial parts of the procedure; she had obtained it, and now there was nothing left but to get to it.

She spent a few moments checking the ropes, made a little bit of a show of doing so; she knew Vriska wouldn’t respond correctly without the knowledge of her entrapment. 

Then came the first real step, and like all first steps, it was the hardest.

There were times when she hated Vriska yes, but she didn’t _ hate _ Vriska. She could never derive joy from Vriska’s flaws, nor did could she summon the desire to drive her sister, to push her into a mold of something she would never be able to obtain. She wanted only to curb the excesses, the behaviors of self destruction and wakes of collateral damage. To do that, she had to make Vriska understand that moirailship was a two-way street. 

She needed to make Vriska  _ give _ herself, the parts of her that were broken and weak, and she needed Vriska to learn that she was safe in giving those those pieces, that Terezi would take them and make them  _ better _ .  

Terezi steeled herself, and ran a single claw down Vriska’s cheek.

She quirked a brow, but remained otherwize unaffected; she likely still thought this was a normal interrogation like any other.

Good.

“Vriska, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer it; you think you can handle that?”

She tapped her claw against Vriska’s nose a few times, eight times, and Vriska smiled.

“You’ll never make  _ me _ talk Redglare,” she retorted, wildly, as if it was a dare. 

It was such a shame Vriska thought their romance was pitch, instead of pale. 

That was going to change, tonight, and Terezi smiled at the thought of it.

She ran her claw down Vriska’s cheek again, once, twice, six times more. 

Vriska started to grow visibly impatient; waiting for a taunt or for her to dig her claws in too deeply.

Rohhse had been quite clear however, in how the interrogation should play out, so Terezi resisted the urge to give in to her lover and kept the pressure soft.

She had watched how Rohhxy had grown restless under the same type of touch, how her irritation mounted from mildly amused to irritate; she did not fancy the tantrum Vriska was similarly brewing. 

She switched cheeks and repeated the actions. 

Vriska lacked the fins that Rohhxy possessed, but Terezi knew that her damaged eye was just as vulnerable a spot for her, just as guarded, just as sensitive. 

Miraculously, she kept her hand steady, and encroached on the old wound.

Vriska growled, a low sound, not yet angry, a gentle reminder, that the area was not one she liked anyone messing with; it was instinctual, not reactionary, so Terezi drew her claws back and began the process from the beginning. 

Eight lingering strokes against the left, and eight more feathery light ones to her right. 

Vriska was fighting a low rumbling growl; Terezi could feel the tension of it resonating off of her. It was only her pride that likely kept the girl from giving into it.

Rohhxy had behaved similarly; when the aggressor is instinctively familiar, Rohhse had said, the recipient was reluctant to retaliate without first exhausting all vestiges of their patience and surrendering their pride. 

Rohhse had hummed to her partner; Terezi had watched Rohhxy idly slide around, on edge, unable to choose her course of response to the continual unexpected stimulation. 

They would mistake anything, for a game, Rohhse had stated, before drawing one of the most terrifying growls out of her partner than anything Terezi had ever thought possible could come from the heiress’s throat.

Terezi licked Vriska’s face; around her damaged eye in a motion so circularly fluid, that it felt as though she had practised it. 

She did so gently, lighter even than the touches of her claw tips had been, but like Rohhxy, Vriska took the action as a display of threat and responded accordingly. 

She pulled back as Vriska let off the beginning of the growl; she didn’t want to get bitten after all, and then leaned back in to slide a hand down Vriska’s cheek. 

The growl continued, but lowered gradually to a dull thrum.

Terezi stepped back and circled around the chair she had tied Vriska to. 

“What the fuck are you playing at Pyrope?”

“Hu _ ssssssssh _ ,” she replied, and said nothing more.

She circled around her for a few minutes, like a seadweller circling an overturned rowboat, and suppressed the grin struggling to spread across her face. 

So far, she thought, so good. 

She stopped circling directly in front of Vriska’s line of sight, and then kept walking until she was outside the range of the spotlight.

The box she had left was standing dutifully at its post and Terezi hauled back over to Vriska with little trouble. She let the box and its contents fall with a steady thud, and watched as Vriska immediately relaxed for just a second before tensing back up. 

“I told you Redglare, there’s nothing you can do to make me talk.”

“We’ll see about that,” Terezi replied calmly, as if she were commenting on something trivial and irrelevant, like Jahyde’s taste in footware.

Vriska snorted, and Terezi could practically see the mask of haughtiness coating her every move. 

“I’m going to ask my question now,” she offered the way an corpratecutioner might offer their charge a last word or a final meal before dealing the final blow.

“Bring it,” Vriska jeered. 

Terezi nodded, mostly to herself as she marked another mental tally off the proceedings, and reached into the box. 

She rummaged around the box, and pulled out a scalemate and set it gingerly to the side. She would come back for the other contents of the box later, but the scalemate would serve as a witness, as Terezi had done for the Lalonds. She didn’t think one was technically required, but she didn’t want to leave the element to chance.  

With that done, she straightened herself, called forth images of her ancestor’s determination and Rohhse’s movements, and took on a more fulfilled presence.   

Vriska eyed the change with interest and Terezi smiled.

She walked over and tilted Vriska’s head by her chin.

“What’s wrong?”

Confusion flittered across Vriska’s face; Rohhxy’s had displayed determination at this point, but she had known what she had been getting into, whereas Vriska was woefully ignorant as to what was about to occur. 

Vriska pouted and her brows knit before she wiped them away to display a cool, suave veneer. 

“Well your bulge for starters.”

Terezi ignored the jibe; it was an affectionate jab, especially by both pitch standards, and by Vriska’s, but it wasn’t quite something she could work with.

Rohhxy had also made sexual taunts, but they were more knit to her personality than Vriska’s was to hers. 

She clicked her tongue and grabbed Vriska by her u-tipped horn. 

Vriska growled, and Terezi slid into her lap, painfully slowly and with all the weight she could muster. 

She hoped that the action wouldn’t be detrimental to her cause, as she wasn’t sure Rohhse’s performation of it had been wholly pale based, but it made Vriska make a strangled noise, and give her her undivided attention.

In fact, she didn’t think she’d ever seen Vriska gazing at her quite this intently. 

It was a little more than flattering, and she couldn’t help but purr. 

Vriska’s pleased rumble in response, loosened the tension in her jaw, and she began to relax.     

Feeling more in control than she had in a long time, she kept the hand around Vriska’s horn tight and placed the other against her cheek. 

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, quietly. 

Vriska moved to kiss her, and Terezi let her, until the push of her lips was near bruising and filled with the threat of teeth.  

She pulled Vriska’s head back, growled a warning, and then gently pulled Vriska’s lips back near her own. 

Twice more, she pulled Vriska’s head back, when the kiss deepened with the wrong sentiment, and it took another time more for Terezi to sigh and pin Vriska’s head back, cup the back of her neck with her free hand, and keep her motionless.

Gently, she brought her lips against Vriska’s, as lightly as she could, and drew back. 

She hummed happily, quietly, and repeated the processes despite Vriska’s huff of annoyance.

When she started whining, Terezi ran the hand around her horn down against her face.

This time, she made no pretense about her intended papping; she was going to let Vriska know just what she had gotten herself into.   

She stroked Vriska’s face, and then papped her, accompanied by a long, heavy, “ _ Shoooooooosh _ .”

The noise that Vriska responded with, she could only describe with as a broken shriek. 

She pulled back. 

“What’s wrong Vriska?”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong Pyrope, and it’s whatever the fusk you’re doing. Knock it off.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way Vriska; if that’s the way you really feel, I guess I have to let you quit our little game. Bummer.”  

“I’m not quitting you idiot,” Vriska retorted indignantly, just as Terezi knew she would, “I just want you to stop fooling around and get to it already.”

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t want a little more romancing first, I guess that’s up to you.”

Terezi shrugged; Rohhse hadn’t mentioned how long she should draw everything out, and she liked to think she knew Vriska better than anyone, so she felt alright in proceeding. 

She papped Vriska’s face with with an authoritative shoosh and a small amount of force. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what you want from me Pyrope!” Vriska all but hissed, eight shoutpoles included.

“I want you to be honest with me Vriska,” Terezi replied, in what she hoped was a soothing manner; she couldn’t replicate either of the Lalond’s velvety soft tones, but she was more than capable of curbing her usual cackle. 

“And since you did such a good job answering my question, I’m going to ask you another.” 

“Fuck you Pyrope.”

Terezi smirked; it was time for the interrogation to get interesting. She slid out of Vriska’s lap and stood in front of her, arms clasped behind her back with a wicked grin plastered across her face. 

“How do you really feel about your lusus?” 

“The fuck what?”

“How do you really feel, about your lusus?” she repeated, more slowly, letting her lips form around each individual word as if she were talking to a wiggler.

“She’s simply the best lusus there was,  _ duh _ ,” Vriska chided, with a roll of her eyes and a smirk, “Really Redglare, if you’re going to interrogate me, you might as well think up something more interesting to talk about. I mean, I love my lusus an all, but she’s kind of a bulge kill. Speaking about bulges, let’s talk about ours? Isn't that a much better idea?”

Vriska wiggled her eyebrows, and Terezi hummed. 

She strode back to the box and took her time plucking out a nail file from its contents. 

She turned it back and forth, letting it catch the light and Vriska’s attention, before returning. 

She tested the ropes again, this time, with intent rather than for show, and knelt.

She lifted up Vriska’s smallest finger, and stared directly in Vriska’s eyes. 

“Tell me how you really feel about your lusus.”

“I already did, are you deaf now as well as blind or something?”

There was confusion in her voice, and something like resignation, likely for the prospect of having the file jammed under her claws; it was technically both a standard interrogation tactic and something of a particularly harsh pitch advance.

Instead of fulfilling Vriska’s idea of what was to come, Terezi ran the file around the claw, instead of jamming under it and into the soft tender flash beneath.

Perhaps one day she run her own claws over it, tenderly, when Vriska learned to trust her, but she didn’t want to push too hard; there was a difference between utilizing kink and utilizing force after all.

Rohhxy had fought her partner tooth and nail, or would have, if she hadn't been tied up, but when she had given in, was had been completely, and Rohhse had been so utterly careful and gentle in putting her back together, that she had watched them from behind her fingers, for how tender and intimate it had been. 

She wanted that, for her and Vriska. 

“I know you don’t really think of your lusus as highly as you say you do.”

She moved on to the next claw.

“I know that you did a lot of the things you did for her.”

Vriska tried to pull her hand away but was stopped by the rope; instead she snarled.

“I think you were afraid of her.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about Redglare,” Vriska growled. 

“Oh, I think that I do Serket.”

She spent some time leisurely filing the claw into something reasonably passable, and moved on to the next one. 

“Spidermom was the best. She taught me everything, she was the coolest!”

It hurt to hear Vriska spit such behemoth droppings; her bloodpusher ached for her partner. 

“What kinds of things did she teach you?”

“The important stuff, stuff that dumb little wigglers with egglulsii wouldn’t understand.”

“Enlighten me then, oh great one, what would this dumb wiggler not understand?”

Vriska scoffed, and then sneered. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said with finality, “Are you almost done, these ropes are getting itchy.”

Terezi dropped the file; it hit the concrete floor with a 'ting' as it flipped over, and then it skittered under Vriska’s chair. 

The noise startled Vriska a hair, and that was all the distraction Terezi needed to keep Vriska occupied while she darted to the box and back, with a blindfold in tow.

It was, she accepted, going to be something of a long morning. 

She was suddenly grateful for the warehouse lacking any windows; Rohhse had chosen the location well, she noted, as she advanced once more towards Vriska. 

 


End file.
